


my peace depends on the ashes in my wake

by snowandfire



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26741224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowandfire/pseuds/snowandfire
Summary: when jeong jeong returns after thirty years away, piandao doesn't know how to face himOR:a reunion fic
Relationships: Jeong Jeong/Piandao (Avatar)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 82
Collections: The Piandao Library





	my peace depends on the ashes in my wake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [purplefennels7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplefennels7/gifts).



> dear abby @pianjeong, this is for you, you are very creative, and smart, and capable, and i hope seeing this reminds you of that and that you are appreciated and loved

_Who has white hair in their thirties? They asked._

_I don’t know. Someone who’s had a difficult life._

Piandao is sitting in his room when he gets the text. The one with the picture of Jeong Jeong. The headline attached reads ‘the mad genius is back in his hometown.’ It would have been nice to get some warning. A note. A letter. An email. Maybe even just a message. They were married for two years, albeit thirty years ago, and he gets to know that Jeong Jeong is back from a well meaning friend who saw him at the train station? Par for the course.

Of course if Piandao followed the newspapers more he could have known about this in advance. He used to have a google alert for his ex-husband, but even just a few weeks of that grew too painful. There were a lot of things written about him. Horrible things, exposees. Mainly things concerning the accident that had killed seventeen people. The accident that had nearly killed Jeong Jeong himself. He doesn’t like to read about that. He barely likes to think about it.

It’s three-thirty the next day when Jeong Jeong shows up in his office. He thrusts the doors open and stands there, expectantly. As if Piandao had begged and pleaded for him to be there. Piandao had begged and pleaded for him to be there. For him to stay. But that was years and years ago. Not now. He doesn’t get to come in here now. After Piandao has rebuilt an entire life without him. Gotten used to the void. The pain of Jeong Jeong passing on into a life that Piandao no longer is a part of.

“Do you still have my things?”

Oh. So it’s about that. Of course, it’s about that.

“I threw them out,” Piandao says, he’s lying. He’s angry, so he’s lying. Jeong Jeong doesn’t deserve those things anyway, in his opinion. After leaving like that. They’re better off in some storage units. Well away from them both. Remnants of a life they lived together in another place, in another time.

“You wouldn’t, you wouldn’t do that,” Jeong Jeong says, and he looks sad, regretful even. “I-I hoped you hadn’t.”

“Hadn’t what?” Piandao says. “Moved on from you? Life goes on. It has to. You said that. Remember?”

“I’m sorry, about all of that, I was young and I was a fool.”

“And now?”

“I suppose I’m an old fool.”

“Yeah,” Piandao says, “you could say that. Now get out. I have a real meeting soon.”

Jeong Jeong leaves. And Piandao’s next meeting is just him meeting with the ghost of his past. Let it not be said that old people can’t have some good old-fashioned overdramatic angst.

How could he just come back here like that? Asking about stuff. Even after all this time though, Jeong Jeong still has the innate ability to come into a room and suck all the space out of Piandao’s mind. His presence is heavy, it’s weight like an anchor to memories that he’s tried to forget. Happier times, picnics in the park. Jeong Jeong would let him hold his hand. Something ridiculously sappy and completely unlike him.

Late nights in the lab. They had even gotten a house. Decorated it together. Splashed paint on the walls. Red. Green. Red again. They had taken in a feral old cat.

They had gone to bed and woken up together. Side by side. Jeong Jeong used to read in bed, staying up late for hours and hours. Piandao was permitted then to put his head in his lap. Piandao still remembers the feel of Jeong Jeong’s dexterous fingers running through his hair. Those two years, they were the perfect times.

The next day Jeong Jeong is back.

“I don’t have your stuff,” Piandao says. “If that’s all, you can leave.”

“What will you do if I don’t?”

Many answers could come to mind. Call security. That would be a good, and rational response.

“I’ll tell you what you told me, we’re better off without each other and this is what needs to happen, that’s what you said right?”

“I did say that.”

That’s good. At least after all this time. Jeong Jeong’s not a liar on top of it all.

Deep down, Piandao knows why he did it. The shame, the publicity. The years under the public eye. Jeong Jeong didn’t want to pull Piandao down with him. The accident had happened when they were twenty eight. Two years married. Six in love. His hair had been black. Jet black. Shiny and soft and beautiful. By the time Jeong Jeong had left, a year past the day he walked out the door. All of his hair was white.

It’s been a difficult life. Piandao knows it. But he would have stuck through it with him if given the chance. He wasn’t given that chance. So why come back now? Does Jeong Jeong have regrets? Or is he just tired?

“I thought, you’re a pretty thing. Maybe you could come around some time,” Jeong Jeong says.

It’s the same line he used when they first met. It’s meant to be nice. Sentimental even. Romantic. But to Piandao it feels like a slap in the face. He can’t say that again. Not after what he’s done.

“Leave me,” Piandao says. Hard. And final.

Jeong Jeong does.

He doesn’t see him for three weeks. In that time, Piandao goes back through their albums. First vacation together. First car trip. Meeting his parents. Piandao always liked the way Jeong Jeong smiled in the pictures. A little haughty, and a little feral. Mine. His hands trace over the face in the photograph.

He never remarried. Neither did Jeong Jeong. People tried to set him up once or twice of course. But it’s never been right with anyone else. When he used to touch someone else. Kiss someone else. It was always Jeong Jeong’s face in the back of his mind. The twinkle in his eye, the one that’s gone and dead now. The way he always looked like he knew more than you. How he could alternately kiss you breathless and curse at you for being stupid. He would think of all of that even with somebody else. It wouldn’t have been fair. So he’s alone, he’s been alone for a long time.

Piandao shows up at Jeong Jeong’s door after eight weeks, a lot of soul searching, and admittedly some pushing from his interns, Sokka and Zuko. He gives it a knock, then two. If no one answers, he’ll just head back home. He’s no stranger to loneliness. At least he tried giving it another go.

“You came?” Jeong Jeong says, he’s dressed in plain pajamas, looking like he just ran down the stairs, fresh from sleep.

“I came,” Piandao says.

Jeong Jeong shoves himself forward and wraps his arms around him. Collapsing his weight against Piandao in a way that’s so solid and so absolutely him. The embrace is everything he’s been wanting for over thirty years. Piandao grips him tight. This isn’t forgiveness. That’s not what it is at all. But it is right.

They don’t have to say the things they feel. They just have to hold onto each other like there’s nothing else in the world. There was no one else for me. It was you. Only you.

“I’m sorry,” Jeong Jeong says into his hair, “I’m so sorry.”

In all these years, he’s never said that before.

Suddenly, Piandao can’t control it. All the years form a torrent of emotion that’s only for him. Only for this man that’s hurt him and loved him and been everything to him even from miles and miles away.

“I would have stood by you.”

“I know that now.”

“Can I come in?” Piandao asks, “Or do you have plans?”

“No plan,” Jeong Jeong says, closing the door, with a slight smile, “Just thought we could make up for it. You. Me. The lost time.”


End file.
